All posts tagged Woodstock

Joe Cocker, the influential British rock and blues singer known for his gravelly voice and unbridled performance style, died Monday at age 70, according to a representative at his agency, Marshall Arts. The singer’s death at his home in Crawford, Colo., followed his battle with lung cancer.

Mr. Cocker’s raw rendition of the Beatles song “With a Little Help From My Friends” brought him U.K. fame in 1968. In a field of more subdued English singers, Mr. Cocker stood out as a soulful belter whose intensity was mirrored in his frenetic body language on stage. He appeared as a tornado in a tie-dye T-shirt at the Woodstock music festival and in the accompanying concert film, which established him as a star in the U.S. and an enduring symbol of 1960s rock. Read More »

Attention dance-music freaks. One of the world’s oldest electronic-music festivals is launching in the U.S. next year in one of the most iconic music-festival settings: Woodstock.

Mysteryland, a 20-year-old festival held annually in the Netherlands by the Dutch event producer ID&T, will make its U.S. debut over Memorial Day weekend 2014 in Bethel Woods, N.Y., the site of the famed 1969 Woodstock festival.

Over the years, the not-for-profit Bethel Woods Center for the Arts has hosted oodles of concerts on the festival site, which now boasts multiple stages and 800 acres of manicured grounds. Artists from Tim McGraw to Elton John have played at its Pavilion Stage amphitheater, which seats 15,000 fans. Read More »

Richie Havens, the singer, songwriter and activist who opened the Woodstock festival in 1969, died Monday morning of a heart attack, his publicist said. He was 72.

Known for rhythmic, percussive guitar style on folk songs that often had funk or jazz undertones, Havens released 21 studio albums during a career that stretched from the mid-’60s to his retirement from touring a few years ago.

In addition to his music career, Havens was an actor who appeared in the original stage version of “The Who’s Tommy” in 1972, and also performed as Othello in 1974 movie “Catch My Soul” and had a role in the 2007 Bob Dylan biopic “I’m Not There.” Havens was also a writer who published an autobiography, “They Can’t Hide Us Anymore,” in 2000, and an environmental advocate who spent decades teaching children about ecological issues through his Natural Guard organization.

If you happen to come across Killian Mansfield’s “Somewhere Else,” a new album issued by 429 Records, a division of Savoy, you might wonder how several big-name musicians came to appear on a recording by a 16 year-old ukulele player from upstate New York. Levon Helm sings on a track called “Fire In My Pocket.” The guitar licks in the cover of David Bowie’s “Starman” are by Todd Rundgren. Dr. John, John Sebastian and Kate Pierson of the B-52s also make guest appearances.

The album was the dream of Mansfield, who worked to complete it during the past year while battling cancer. His parents, Phil and Barbara Mansfield, run a store in West Shokan, N.Y., and reached out to the nearby Woodstock music community for collaborators. Ralph Legnini, a local producer who taught Killian ukulele, also contacted music-industry pals like Rundgren, provided the studio time and oversaw the record’s production. Mansfield sings solo on two tracks of “Somewhere Else,” and sings and plays ukulele throughout. He also chose the songs, including Prince’s “Kiss,” the Elvis classic “If I Can Dream,” and Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies” — an eclectic selection for a 16 year-old. “His iPod constantly blew me away,” his father said. “It was everything from Gogol Bordello to Bach. The spectrum was so broad.”

Mansfield often laid down tracks during rests between treatment sessions, and late in the process a tumor on his arm restricted his playing. “I knew I had an hour or two hours of focused energy with him,” Legnini said. “But I didn’t cut him any slack. He knew that, and he respected that. If I complimented his playing, he’d say, ‘Are you just telling me that because I’m Cancer Kid?’”

Had coffee this morning with Michael Lang, co-creator of the Woodstock Music & Art Festival — or, as his forthcoming look-back book “The Road to Woodstock” puts it, “the mastermind and creative genius who brought Woodstock to life.” Let’s assume someone in marketing at Ecco, or co-author Holly George-Warren, hung that on Lang.

Woodstock, he said, “doesn’t pop into my mind unless somebody brings it up –- which has happened thousands of times in the past 40 years.” With his mop of brown hair, Lang, who is now 64, looks remarkably like he did four decades ago when he appeared in the Michael Wadleigh documentary, “Woodstock.” “I get recognized all the time because of the movie,” he said. Read More »

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